A Fever Dream
by spoiledthoughts
Summary: Idea from Jestana's 'Fanfic Encounters' Minerva visits two of her fanfic writers to wish them well. Pretty much random spur of the moment junk.


A/n: Just a few moments ago, or maybe it was hours I'm not exactly sure, I finished reading the story by Jestana called: 'Fanfic Encounters' The thought of meeting Minerva in person made me smile and entertained me for a few more moments before I decided to write this. (not to mention the nurse who came in here wearing tartan and had dark hair...) In this I am Cassie and darlingdearheart (my partner in crime and best friend) shall go by Dara.  
  
Thanks much to Jestana for the kind of idea and to Rowling for her making up Minerva.  
  
```A Fever Dream```  
  
A girl with long wavy blonde hair sat on a chair, propping her feet against the wall with a laptop on her lap, typing away in a way that could only be called violent. Next to her in a hospital bed was a frail and almost translucent girl with dark brown hair, fast asleep with the heart monitor beeping next to her.  
  
Aside from the ticking of the laptop and the heart monitors rather annoying beeps the room was absolutely silent. The blonde haired girl glared at the computer in annoyance and almost threw the laptop onto the bedside table and began to take in her surroundings with her bright blue eyes, obviously trying to over come her anger and frustration.  
  
The room was bright white all around, especially because the sun light was streaming through the window. At the foot of the bed, against the other wall was a nightstand littered with flowers for the sick girl. There was a bulletin board underneath the t.v. that attached to the wall. Underneath the bulletin board, which was littered with pinned up cards of the 'Get well soon' nature, were the hoards of flowers.  
  
The girl in the bed moaned softly and tossed her head, throwing back some almost auburn hair from her face. The blonde haired girl turned to look at her with one eye brow raised in an almost sarcastic way.  
  
"Cassie- no." the girl in bed murmured, heart rate going off it's usually beat for a moment.  
  
"Wake up." The blonde haired girl said gently, leaning over the bed rail and patting the by then screaming girl's shoulder. "It's a night mare Dara. A night mare." She said as the girl's green eyes flew open in alarm and she sat up and clung to the other girl's waist, already dissolved into tears.  
  
"It was horrible Cassie! Horrible!" she wept, holding onto Cassie as tight as she possibly could, acting like a small child terrified of the dark.  
  
"Nightmare." Cassie enunciated every syllable. "It was a nightmare." She assured Dara as Dara brushed the tears away from her face and leaned back into the pillows in an upright position.  
  
"I'm glad you're still here." Dara said quietly as Cassie busied herself in her laptop again.  
  
"If you start on the mushy stuff I'll leave." Cassie replied callously, not even looking at her friend's ashen face. A silly smile spread across Dara's face.  
  
"I love you too." She said, trying to sound perky and lively, but sounding slightly weaker than she should have been. Cassie turned to look at her with a scowl.  
  
"They brought you food you know." She said after a moment's silence and Dara's smile growing wider. The smile almost instantly vanished.  
  
"That's nice. Where are my parents?" she asked, almost immediately changing the subject. Cassie twitched her lip to the side and did not answer. "Fine! Fine! I'll eat some of that stupid horrible food and throw it back up in a minute!" Dara said, suddenly very irritable and her green eyes radiating anger. Cassie pulled a small over hanging table up to her and put the tray on it, smiling slightly at her friends anger that she knew she would immediately regret.  
  
"I'm sorry." Dara said, hanging her head in shame, almost as if on cue from Cassie's thoughts.  
  
"All is well." Cassie assured her. "Your mom is still on her trip and your dad is at work. The kiddies are with their friends- you know- that kid that bugs me." Cassie's eye twitched and Dara laughed at the old habit.  
  
"You mean my Ash? She's such a little sweetie pie- how can you not like her?" Dara asked as she picked at the food in front of her, almost skillfully making it look as though she had eaten as Cassie turned back to her computer.  
  
"Your friend on here leaves nice reviews." Cassie said, not looking up at Dara, who was staring at her, hoping not to be caught arranging her food.  
  
"You mean Pally? Palanfanaiel? Yeah... she's lovely. Really she is." Dara smiled brightly. "She's such a nice little writer. And she calls me a mean little orc." Dara was by then glowing because of her smiling, and looking up at the ceiling for a moment as if traveling to a past memory.  
  
"And this makes you happy?" Cassie asked her, turning to her with her eye brow raised, in her usual sarcastic and suspicious looking facial expression.  
  
"It's so cute!" Dara replied, almost back to her usual enthusiasm. "I love that fan fiction site! It's like a place where-"Dara was cut off.  
  
"There's a place in my head, where I really don't give a damn." Cassie replied sardonically.  
  
"Well aren't you just?" Dara asked, face melting into a soft scolding expression that seemed to suit her.  
  
"I hate that! It makes no sense! Aren't you just what?" Cassie almost yelled, loathing for the expression revived instantly.  
  
"My old people say it." Dara smiled again, already reminiscing about her beloved elderly.  
  
"I hate your old people. They're crazy and creepy." Cassie said.  
  
"No you don't." Dara argued. "You love them and you know it sweetie pie." Cassie looked defeated.  
  
'The endearments always make her win. I need to get up the guts to call someone sweetie pie- then I'll win.' Cassie thought to herself as she turned back to the computer. "How does she do it?" Cassie cried suddenly as Dara played with more food, picking up a single grain of corn and playing with the spoon to see if she could sling it at Cassie's head.  
  
"What?" Dara asked, dropping the spoon as Cassie looked in her direction.  
  
"This Jestana reviews almost instantly after I've updated." Cassie said in disbelief.  
  
"Oh! She probably has you on author alert. She's a very good writer! She writes about Mad-Eye! He's my man!" Dara said, laughing in a teasing manner. There was a soft knock at the door and little did the fanfic authors know their life was about to change.  
  
"Whom is it and what is it that you are wanting and please come it my darling." Dara sang sweetly through the door. The door opened very slowly and a woman wearing a tartan traveling cloak and clutching a carpet bag came into the room.  
  
"Oh- if you're drawing blood I'll just slip out." Cassie said quickly, not looking up or wanting to be any where near when the nurse drew blood because Dara would scream and carry on and cry that she hated everything which was so against her nature it was almost shattering to hear.  
  
Dara or the supposed nurse didn't respond. Both were staring at each other, Dara in curiosity and the stranger in a little teasing sort of way.  
  
"You have no need to leave Cassandra." The stranger said quietly with a soft Scottish accent as Dara pointed to the chair behind Cassie. Cassie spun around and gasped.  
  
"You- you're-"Cassie stammered, for once speechless.  
  
"It's Minnie McG!" Dara said brightly, smiling happily at the woman.  
  
"I would very much prefer if you did not call me that." Minerva said quietly, giving Dara a slightly harsh look.  
  
"But I want to call you Minnie! How did you get here?" Dara asked, eye's bright with joy and anticipation of a story.  
  
"I was reading fanfiction about myself when I discovered you were ill. I wished to come and be certain that you were alright." Minerva said, softer in her tone of voice than she had previously been, although who could blame her for being called Minnie by a perky young teenager.  
  
"You read our fanfiction? OH! Are we ever right in what we say?" Dara asked brightly as Cassie still stared in disbelief. "Do you visit other people too? Did you really visit Jestana that time? I remember that fic! I remember something!" Dara smiled proudly.  
  
"I have visited many other fan fiction writers, but they never remember it." Minerva said quietly.  
  
"You take their memory with a memory charm don't you?" Cassie asked dully. Minerva nodded silently.  
  
"You seemed clever in the way you wrote." She said quietly.  
  
"Are we ever right?" Dara asked again, the excitement fading from her voice and a dullness coming into her eyes.  
  
"I can't tell you dear. It would ruin your imagination." Minerva said softly, noticing the dullness in Dara's eyes. "Are you feeling very terrible still?" she asked.  
  
"No. I'm all better. Doctors are just being jerks and they won't let me go home." Dara said quietly, all the zest gone from her voice and her voice becoming as monotonous as her eyes. "Minnie are you going to erase our memories too?" Dara asked, all the innocence of her childhood dream coming true making her seem incorruptible and pure of heart.  
  
"I'll have to. I can't go around visiting my fanfiction writers and allowing them to know I exist." Minerva said, seeming genuinely sad.  
  
"So it's all true." Cassie said in disbelief. Minerva turned to look at her and her lips twitched slightly.  
  
"You always struck me as a very level headed child. I know it's hard to believe." Minerva said quietly. Dara leaned back into the pillows a little more than jerked forward.  
  
"Voldie! He's real! He'll try to kill us off!" Dara gasped. "He'll know we know and he'll know Min knows us and that we're muggles and then BAM!" she slapped her hands together, "We're toasted!"  
  
"You needn't worry Dara. There's a whole system that's been invented by the order to protect such fan fiction writers." Minerva said reassuringly, patting the girl's shoulder.  
  
"Ooh." Dara whimpered meekly as a spasm of pain over took her. "No I'm fine! I'm fine I promise!" she said as Minerva and Cassie both leaned forward, looking hopeful to help.  
  
"I have a potion for her." Minerva said quietly, turning to Cassie as Dara began whimpering uncontrollably as she fought not to cry out in pain. Minerva opened the carpet bag and handed the small potion to Cassie for her to hold as Minerva set the bag down on the ground and picked up Dara's glass of milk off her tray and with help from Cassie poured the potion in.  
  
"Dara, lass, come now, drink this." Minerva said softly, putting the glass to the girl's lips. "It'll make it stop hurting Dara. You'll go to sleep for a while. With no nightmares. I promise." Minerva said gently as she coaxed the trembling girl into drinking the potion. Cassie watched in awe.  
  
'How amazing. Minerva McGonagall helps her fan fic writers all the time I bet. We'll never know it either.' She thought sadly.  
  
Dara finally dozed off and Minerva patted her head and pushed a sweat soaked lock of hair out of her face. She turned to Cassie and smiled sadly, and Cassie knew what was coming.  
  
"One question before you zap my mind to oblivion." Cassie said quietly. Minerva paused and waited for her to continue. "We've seen you before haven't we? You take care of all the fan fic writers that write about you like you take care of your cubs, don't you?" Cassie asked, almost in an accusing tone of voice.  
  
"You always struck me as a very level headed child." Minerva repeated one of her previous statements before she modified Cassie's memory and left her dosing with her head on the night stand table.  
  
Minerva smiled, gave each girl a pat on the head before walking out the door.  
  
A few hours later Cassie woke up completely oblivious to the fact that any one had been there. There was only one thing Minerva had forgotten: to modify Dara's memory. But it didn't matter because even when Dara briefly recalled the encounter she passed it off as a fever dream.  
  
But in that brief moment that Dara remembered she was filled with a sense of well-being and happiness that she was part of Minerva's group of cubs before she drifted off into one of her unconscious but dreamless sleeps.  
  
A/N: Just want to think that maybe there is some one out there taking care of all of us cool fan fic writers.  
  
Peace out,  
  
S.T. 


End file.
